HIGHLIGHTS

Financial system: President Barack Obama said more money would be needed to rescue troubled banks and sought to assure Americans that their bank deposits are safe.

Auto industry: Obama said he would not allow the demise of the struggling companies or reward “their own bad practices.”

Global warming: The president called on Congress to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by creating a cap-and-trade system of limits and pollution allowances.

Health care: Obama said his budget will include a down payment on coverage for all, partly paid for by squeezing waste out of the system.

Education: Obama asked every American to commit to completing a year or more of higher education or job training.

SOURCE: Associated Press

THE SPEECH

President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress used 6,000 words. The number of times he used these words* or phrases:

58 America

22 economy

19 nation

19 jobs

16 health care

14 education

14 energy

14 business

13 bank

13 budget

12 recovery

12 family

11 Congress

11 responsibility

10 future

7 confidence

7 government

7 problem

6 debt

5 action

5 strong

4 compete

3 mortgage

3 bold

*similar words, such as 'family and families,' are counted

WASHINGTON 
President Barack Obama urged the nation last night to see the economic crisis as reason to raise its ambitions, calling for expensive new efforts to address energy, health care and education programs even as he warned that more money might be needed to bail out banks.

In his first address to a joint session of Congress, Obama mixed an acknowledgment of the depth of the economic problems with an exhortation to American resilience. He offered an expansive agenda followed by a pledge to begin paring an ever-climbing budget deficit.

“The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation,” he said. “The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.”

He was greeted in the House of Representatives chamber with gregarious applause, particularly from Democrats who hold a strong majority. Yet even Republicans leaned in close to Obama as he passed by them in the narrow aisle and made his way to the speaker's dais at the front of the room.

Obama said he came to the Capitol not only to address members of the House and Senate who were seated before him, but also to “speak frankly and directly to the men and women who sent us here.”

“If we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that for too long, we have not always met these responsibilities – as a government or as a people,” Obama said. “I say this not to lay blame or look backwards, but because it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.”

A failure to confront the nation's dependence on foreign oil, deal with the rising cost of health care or find a solution to the decline of American schools contributed to the place the country finds itself in, Obama said.